The lone advocate

In the wake of the death of Michael Brown, the unarmed teenager who was shot to death Saturday afternoon by a police officer in Ferguson, Mo., I was sent out to cover a local prayer vigil at Shepherd Park. When I arrived, a boisterous man introduced himself to me.

“Nothing is going to happen until the people of this neighborhood care,” Dennis Woodward said as we stood at the edge of a predominately white neighborhood with two-story homes that value at $350,000 at the low-end. Across the park, a neighborhood being gentrified.

“These are the people, white people, who can make change happen,” as he pointed to the manicured lawns and freshly painted doors. “I mean, they’ve got tasers, why don’t they use them.”

Brown sent out a message on social media, calling people to meet him at the park for a prayer vigil to honor Brown and advocate for justice. Only one other person showed up. Now at this point, most people would have considered this assignment a bust. But then something special happened.

The two men, both passionate about people and birding , chatted for a bit. Shared their feelings regarding the shooting and politics. Exchanged phone numbers and then when their separate ways. In the mean time, using white shoe polish, Woodward wrote the words “Stop shooting them!,” on the windows of his silver Toyota Camry.

Putting the last letters on his driver’s side widow, a truck catches his eye. Or is it the driver? He waves down the truck, and he encourages the woman roll down the window. Woodward enthusiastically points to his car, proud to show the African-American woman what he has done.

The two strangers talk. Woodward gives his support while lovingly holding Dennis Mnebele’s hand. Woodward insists that nothing will change until “white people make that change happen. It’s the same as in the 60s,” he says.
Mndebele is surprised. “In this community it feels very good because this is a very conservative neighborhood,” Mndebele said of the Shepherd Park neighborhood. “He has taken a stance to let people know he cares. It’s about love.”

No one may have come to Woodward’s vigil. But he proved where his heart is.